Becoming friends
by typingfasterthanyou
Summary: James couldn't understand it, Lily was friends with Remus, tutored Peter and even tolerated Sirius! But for some reason she still wouldn't admit that James was no longer the pig-headed boy that pranked her in second year. Could he turn things around for their seventh year?


**So here I am again, writing another Harry Potter story to fill the gap missing from my life… I joke, this is my newest idea, a look into the relationship Lily had with all the other marauders and how that impacted on her romantic relationship with James (or lack thereof at this point). I hope you all enjoy it!**

 **.**

Peter Pettigrew was sitting, perplexed, chewing nervously on the end of his quill. The feathered end was almost chewed to a point and no individual feathers could actually be distinguished anymore from years of misuse. Contrasting his nervous disposition, his pale eyes were glassy and fixed straight ahead.

"Now, vanishing spells are difficult, and I'm not quite sure how you manage to leave the teeth visible every time you perform one, but if you work hard we will manage to sort this for you."

He was sitting opposite a girl who never failed to set his eyes watering and his hands fidgeting from nerves. Of course all girls made Peter nervous, but this fiery haired girl specifically made him shake more than all others.

"Am I getting the movement wrong? Or the incan-" Peter's voice shook, "Can-cantantion?"

Lily Evans smiled, a smile that softened the hardest teacher and sent every boy in the nearest 15m radius weak at the knees. She shook her head, "I'm not sure. We'll have to meet up outside the library and practice so I can figure it out."

He nodded eagerly, almost knocking his books of of the table.

"Now, have you got started on the partner vanishing spells essay…"

Her voice dulled into background noise as he stared at Lily, enraptured by the way her green eyes sparkled and her pale skin seemed to glimmer in the limited light the library provided. Lily was the only reason he ever really came to these tutoring sessions, Peter may have been dim but he wasn't stupid, he knew he wasn't going to pass whether he worked harder or not. The only way he ever got through his exams was by cheating, how else would he have time to follow his best friends around through their pranks and hijinks?

"So if you do that, then the essay is pretty easy!" Lily concluded with another dazzling smile, setting her perfectly sleek quill down on the table. She looked up again, "Have you got any more questions?"

Peter shook his head; he was going to ask her if she wished to accompany him to Hogsmeade the weekend coming, but somehow the words got stuck in his throat as they so often did.

With that Lily rose from the table, calling out a date and time for their next tutoring session as she passed a bespectacled student entering the library, not noticing as the corner of her books sent him stumbling against the door.

As Peter furiously scribbled down the time Lily had announced, the student she'd sent flying collapsed at his table. He was still staring after Lily, despite her having vanished out of view many seconds previous.

"James!" Peter's face lit up. If Lily was the girl he liked most in the world, it was nothing compared to his obsession with James. The messy haired boy was Peter's best friend, even if he wasn't James'.

"I swear she doesn't even know I exist," James moaned loudly, rubbing his steamed up glasses on the corner of his jumper, "How on earth did you get the elusive Lily Evans to tutor you?"

"How could she not know you exist, James? You're one of the most popular guys in school!" The shorter boy exclaimed incredulously, then his face dropped, "I think the only reason she tutors me is she feels sorry for me."

"She hates me," He grumbled as he sunk further into the dilapidated chair he'd sat on. It was true that he didn't really need tutoring in charms, he was second in the class only to Lily Evans herself, but it had still been a huge blow to his ego when she'd laughed in his face at the idea.

Peter had nothing to say to this, it was a pretty well known fact that Lily hated James' guts, something to do with a prank gone wrong in second year. Only Sirius, James and Lily herself really knew what went down and none of the three would ever speak a word.

Suddenly James sat up, tapping on the old oak table as he considered something, "I wonder where she went?"

"Are you gonna follow her?" Peter asked excitedly, imagining going on a secret mission with James where they got to follow Lily Evans. His eyes watered at the thought.

James pulled out the marauders map from the pocket of his robes, flattening the parchment onto the table so it covered Peter's notes. He tapped it and swore he was up to no good, watching with self-indulgent pride as the map he, Sirius and Remus made (plus Peter watched) revealed itself to him.

"Aha!" He cheered to himself as he spotted her dot on the map, "She's… she's with Remus!"

"Prefect rounds," Peter supplied, looking slightly gutted. There was no way they'd go follow Lily if she was with their friend, that would just cause embarrassment all round.

James blew all the air out of his nose noisily, slumping back into his chair again.

.

"How is young Peter doing under your tutorage?" Remus asked with a wry smile, walking side by side with Lily.

She rolled her eyes and pretended to be cross, "I'll have you know he's actually… getting worse! How, how can that boy be becoming more dim with all this extra tutoring?"

Lily looked genuinely upset by the notion that she wasn't helping someone and Remus could hardly bring himself to tell her the real reason Peter couldn't concentrate in tutoring. He sighed and gave in, "Maybe it's not quite your teaching that's doing him harm, but the effects of a girl like you on a boy like Peter."

"A girl like me?" She inquired with a raised eyebrow.

"Come on Lily, you of all people must know you're gorgeous," Remus shook his head, pausing to open a broom cupboard and checking it was as empty as the rest they'd seen.

Lily seemed torn between looking flattered and obstinate that he was suggesting her looks were impacting her ability to teach, "And how come you're not struck dumb in my presence?"

"We're friends. And anyway, I don't think the way Peter does," Remus replied quickly, avoiding actually looking at Lily for the first time in their conversation. Of course Remus was never too bothered about whether girls were particularly pretty or not, it had to do with the fact his furry little problem prevented him from ever really pursuing anything with one. But he wasn't just going to tell Lily that.

"What's that supposed to mean?" She said with a slight frown. He was very rarely so standoffish with her and when he was it was always over seemingly the most trivial of things.

"Nothing," He responded, a small smile on his lips by way of an apology. "We've only got the Astronomy Tower left to check and then we're home free."

Lily groaned loudly, "That's always the worst."

"At least I know neither Sirius nor James will be there tonight," Remus responded with thanks in his tone.

She laughed out loud remembering the number of times they had tried to give detentions to Remus' best friends for being out of bed with girls at night, and the arguments and hijinks which this construed. "How do you know?" She inquired casually.

"Sirius is busy trying to get off with Marlene, and I hardly think he will have got anywhere with her yet," Remus explained and Lily nodded, pulling a face, "And James well he…" His voice trailed off suspiciously and the tips of his ears seemed to pinken, something unheard of in someone as rarely embarrassed as Remus.

"Potter is what?" Lily bit out James' surname with instant malice, just the thought of the irritating prankster setting her teeth on edge.

Remus pursed his lips, knowing he would be saying something he shouldn't, "You know James is in love with you, Lily."

"He is not in love with me!" Lily responded with a bitter laugh, "I'm just the only girl in the school who doesn't fall at his feet."

"He may only want you because he can't have you, but what I've heard is he doesn't want any other girl because he's too hung up on you," Remus shrugged. As casual as the sandy-haired boy seemed at this admittance, the saga of Lily and James as it was commonly known had basically dominated his entire school career. As they had all grown up, James had increasingly become obsessed with winning over Lily Evans and as Remus spent time with her on prefect rounds, somehow he had become James' main confidante on the situation.

Lily frowned at this, Remus' description of James' motivations not fitting in with her personal idea of him as a womanizing idiot. Why would he be hung up over her when his life's mission was to snog every girl at the school? Surely he hadn't reached the last girl in the school yet, she thought with a silent chuckle to herself.

When they reached the tower there was of course a couple of seventh years snogging on the stairs, so Remus and Lily had the unpleasant job of telling the older students they had to go to bed and give out detentions. After that they returned to the Gryffindor common room and instantly Remus walked over to where James, Sirius and Peter were sat by the fire. Lily lingered by the door for a moment, until she felt two of the four marauders look up and stare at her and she ran to join her friends Marlene and Alice.

James watched her with a gaze as wistful as Peter's was gormless, wishing as always that she'd follow Remus over to sit with them, but she never did.

"Put your tongues back in your mouths Prongs, Wormtail," Remus ordered with a chuckle, "She'd gonna notice how much you both lust after her at some point."

Sirius looked up at this and glanced at Lily, "That girl is hot," he announced with an appreciative smirk.

"Tell me something I don't know," James responded, dropping his cheek onto his fist with a heavy breath.

"Well, Marlene is hotter," Sirius said with a shrug. He rose from his seat and strode confidently over to the girls, occupying the last seat available at the table. He was greeted fairly pleasantly as far as James could see, and instantly began flirting with Marlene and the other girls.

James almost growled with annoyance, "How does he do that? If I went over there all I'd get is a slap."

"I'd say it's because he's less smarmy and big headed but he's even more so," Remus said in his trademark matter-of-fact tone, "I don't understand it."

.

"Ladies," Sirius greeted with a wide smile as he dropped into the empty chair, "Al, Lil, Marly."

Both Lily and Alice rolled their eyes, pausing their wizards' chess game for only a second before returning to it. Marlene, however, giggled.

"You are looking ravishing, Marlene McKinnon," Sirius schmoozed, taking a strand of her curly blonde hair between his fingers as he spoke.

"You are sounding slimy, Sirius Black," Lily commented good-naturedly, taking Alice's pawn with her knight.

Marlene hushed her, "You are so full of yourself, Sirius," She laughed.

"You love it," He responded arrogantly, leaning back in his chair and stretching. His dark eyes then found the chess game and he watched intently for a moment before speaking, "Castle to E4, Lil'."

Her green eyes narrowed and flickered back to the board. Somehow Sirius had figured out an end to their stalemate and that was unbelievably annoying. With a surrendering shake of her head Lily moved her castle and announced, "Checkmate."

"Merlin, Sirius!" Alice exclaimed angrily, watching as her king surrendered his sword. Alice certainly was usually the quietest girl in the common room, but wizards' chess was no joke to her.

"He is an arse," Lily agreed and couldn't help grinning.

In the commotion none of the occupants of the table had noticed another presence standing over them. "Such foul words from such a sweet mouth," James commented with faux mournfulness.

"There's no room left at the table, Potter," Lily stated without looking up, the grin disappearing from her face as quickly as it had appeared.

Sirius smirked at the girls and then at his friend, "He can sit on my lap." With that he patted his knee and with a flourish James sat down, looking ridiculous as James was at least 7 inches taller than Sirius.

"Unless, of course, you want to sit on _my_ lap, Evans," James called out, his voice shaky as Sirius was jiggling both his knees up and down comically.

"I'd rather sit on the branches of the whomping willow," She retorted icily, passive aggressively putting away the wizards' chess pieces whom protested angrily.

James mock gasped and put a hand over his heart, "Don't be like that Evans, you're never this cruel to Sirius here."

"That's because Sirius is harmless," She explained steadily.

"And I'm harmful?" He exclaimed, deadly serious now.

She fixed him with a withering stare before standing and announcing to the table that she was going to bed. But as she began walking quickly towards the girls' staircase the six foot 3 presence followed closely behind her, finally overtaking and blocking the way to the stairs.

"Why do you hate me so much Lily?" James asked, although his tone was jokey there was real confusion in his brown eyes, "You are friends with Remus and Sirius, you tutor _Peter…"_

"They're nice to me. I can have a conversation with them without being constantly flirted with," Lily listed off on her fingers sarcastically, "I actually like them."

James looked away so she couldn't see the actual hurt in his expression. He didn't understand how he could be so much worse than all his other friends, he didn't want to come off so arrogant, something strange just came over him when he was around Lily.

He finally looked back at her, eyebrows raised, "You're saying you can have a conversation with Sirius without him flirting with you?"

"Oh be quiet Potter," Lily rolled her eyes, the faint outline of a smile playing at her lips. She took this friendly moment as an opportunity to push past James and hurry up the stairs, embarrassed by herself for almost laughing at one of Potter's jokes.

He watched her go, feeling a flush of excitement come over his cheeks as he thought about that smile. He made Lily smile! That had to be one of the few times that had ever happened in the six years they'd been at Hogwarts.

A loud noise from back in the common room pulled him out of his dazed daydream. It seemed Remus and Peter had now also joined the girls, magically extending the table and summoning extra chairs. The group were now playing gobstones and laughing loudly and James itched to join them, but something was bothering him.

It was so obvious that they were compatible, she was friends with his friends, his friends were friends with her friends… At this point the girls may as well be inducted int the marauders for all the time they spent together! And yet Lily refused to even acknowledge James' had any qualities other than pig-headed arrogance. Sure that may have been him once, but at the start of sixth year James had promised himself he would become more like the sort of person Lily would want to date. And when sixth year ended in a few weeks he would step things up even more for sixth year…

With a surrendering sigh he made his way back over to his friends, wishing that Lily was still with them.

.

 **So? Please let me know any comments or thoughts you have on this opening chapter, feedback is always amazing help and an even better motivator!**


End file.
